Route Flags
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: All of Kenma's advice regarding love comes from dating sims. One-sided Hinata/Kageyama


**It's an old prompt:**

 **"You know, I was talking with a friend about Kenma supporting KageHina in distance by sending Hinata supportive tips when he kind of told the story about his crush. Something like- Kenma started giving advice he learns from dating sims because Hinata was so desperate. But... Kageyama was being so dense that both Hinata and Kenma got frustrated- Kenma is frustrated mostly because Kenma somehow started treating the matchmaking as a dating sim game somehow, lol."**

 **This didn't turn out the way I wanted it to though. D':**

"We need to come up with a better plan than giving gifts," Hinata urged, voice low with frustration.

"What's wrong with – "

"Nothing, except my allowance! And all Kageyama wants is milk, but he's giant enough already!"

Sighing, Kenma jabbed the pause button on his controller and whirled over to his computer instead (he was _not_ going to admit to being that high schooler who still found amusement in spinning chairs around like a three year old though).  
On speaker phone, Hinata muttered, "I'm still trying to save up for that new Demon Hunter game... And a new pair of knee pads. Hana wants a doll for Christmas..."

"Are we still playing DemHun together when you get it?"

He tapped the keyboard a few times, waiting impatiently for the screen to light up. Unfortunately, Kenma couldn't seem to convince his parents to buy him a new one – even though this one was one of their hand-me-downs and probably constructed during the Stone Age. Possibly the Jurassic Era.

"Of course!" Hinata brightened up instantly.

"I've got some decent equipment right now," Kenma mumbled, deep in concentration. Why did typing and talking have to be so hard? "We can go farming for – "

"Whatever. You're the brain, Kenma."

Kenma groaned. "Please stop talking to Kuro."

Glancing at the dating sim titles lining his shelves, he almost wished Hinata would stop talking to _him_. More than half of them had been bought within the last couple of months. Real life didn't have affection levels and route flags, but for some reason Hinata kept coming to him for advice anyway.

"How come the last plan didn't work?" Kenma questioned, despite being fairly certain he already knew the reason. If Hinata would just confess normally, it would save all three of them a lot of embarrassment.

X

Showering Kageyama with gifts – mostly cartons of milk – hadn't worked, but somehow Kenma hadn't run out of ideas yet. And Hinata was willing to try anything that wasn't straight up "tell him how you feel", which explained why he was currently in this position.

He felt ridiculous. Leaning against the wall, with all of his weight supported by one hand, he glared at Kageyama's chest – and he wasn't glaring, specifically, because he was angry or something! A mix of intense concentration and annoyance over their height difference just made it difficult not to.

Mere seconds seemed to stretch into an eternity. How long was he supposed to wait before –  
"Hey," Kageyama spoke up finally, his posture straightening alongside his realization.

Finally, finally, finally!

"Did you trip?"

Hinata growled with frustration. "Did I not hit the wall hard enough!?"

X

"He had no idea what I was doing," Hinata grumbled quietly.

"The ritualistic mating cry of a shoujo love interest..."

"Huh?"

He heard some soft rustling over the speakers, like Hinata had rolled over on his bed.

"Never mind."

As far as Kenma was concerned, pinning your love interest against a wall was more intimidating than romantic. But apparently worked in dating sims, and – honestly, a tiny part of him just wanted to see if Hinata would actually do it.

"Have you tried the tsundere approach yet? These types of characters top polls in all the online surveys..."

"What's a tsundere?"

"It's like when you go back and forth between being really nice to someone and mean to them."

He could've explained more, wondering all the while if he'd fallen too deep into the hole to crawl back out, but was interrupted by Hinata's snickering. "That totally describes Kageyama."

"Then maybe he already likes you and you should confess?"

"No way. Now gimme a real tip, Kenma."

"Confess to Kageyama," the setter repeated bluntly.

Like a normal person would. It was the same advice he'd been telling Hinata on repeat since the other boy had confessed his feelings for Kageyama to _him_. Which had been awkward even before they'd reached the point of taking advice from horrible dating sims, thank you very much.

"Real tips."

Kenma sighed.

"Have you tried becoming watching anime? Because there are a disproportionate number of harem protagonists who watch anime one-hundred sixty-nine hours a week while simultaneously having at least a dozen love interests."

For the record, there were only one-hundred sixty-eight hours in a week. If Hinata seriously thought this was a better idea than –

"That could work," Hinata mused, starting slowly, but quickly gaining confidence. "Y-yeah! I don't think Kageyama watches anything other than the sports channel, but it could give us something to talk about. I could probably even find some volleyball shows to watch!"

He was going to be single forever at this rate, and if Kenma lived to be a hundred years old he would still spend the rest of his life wondering why he'd gone out of his way to enable this.


End file.
